Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

The neutral companies, such as utilities, online hosting or financial providers serve nearly everyone with little objections - they defer to the law rather than any internal policies. The more selective companies such as newspapers and TV channels are expected to restrict who can get published.

By representing itself both as an open platform and as a company with progressive values, Twitter has put itself into an awkward in-between spot and is bound to create such controversies.

Fact-checking obvious lies is a "progressive value"? Wow, that really shows how bad things have gotten.

If the lies are obvious, why do they need "fact checking"?

Because, for better or worse, the sources of truth that normal people historically relied on for their barometer of what is true or not have been democratized by the internet.

We live in a world where a substantial number of people believe the earth is flat, that 5G cellular is a mind control scheme, that vaccines cause autism, that COVID-19 was created by a political party, that the concept of climate change is manufactured, or that major national crises are actually just actors being paid to further a political narrative.

Most of these ideas aren't new, but in decades past you might have heard about them from a conspiracy-therorist neighbor, a low profile website, or an alternative magazine with little reputation of its own.

Now, these ideas are spread on the exact same platforms as objectively truthful / scientifically sound media. Your Youtube conspiracy theory channel is right next to the BBC's videos. Your viral Facebook post could be from the New York Times, or it might be from a propaganda organization - or worse, an account that looks like a normal person but which was specifically created to spread misinformation that seems plausibly truthful.

Credibility is distributed and anyone can publish to a huge audience, which is wonderful sometimes, and othertimes deeply problematic, because the viewer often doesn't know enough to distinguish fact from fiction and can't trust the publisher at face value anymore.

Its uncharted territory. The cost to distribute is zero, and ideas spread far and wide - but that means that there are equally as many incredible sources on any given topic as credible ones, and telling the difference is hard, and sometimes not knowing the difference is dangerous. Dunning-Kruger writ large.

Great post.

I also think that poor general education has also been exposed. People lack general science education and critical thinking skills. Just look at all the 'gotcha' posts of people giving scientists a hard time for changing their positions as new information is learned, when that is exactly what a scientist is supposed to do.

The other part drives these conspiracy theories is not just that they share a platform with legitimate sources, but also the algorithms. Someone clicks on a single story that is borderline conspiracy out of curiosity, and now they are served them at every turn. It's easy for a person to get lost and think that what they are being pushed is the entire world.

By the way, I think you're being downvoted because of this statement:

We live in a world where a substantial number of people believe the earth is flat, that 5G cellular is a mind control scheme, that vaccines cause autism, that COVID-19 was created by a political party, that the concept of climate change is manufactured, or that major national crises are actually just actors being paid to further a political narrative.

I've noticed there is a contingent on HN that do believe in some or all of these things.

I take issue with the "substantial number" claim.

Where are the studies that actually show it is a substantial number? Where's the peer-reviewed replication of those studies? How do those studies account for the "Lizardman constant" (https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...)?

Maybe I'm unique, but I'd guess many of the downvoters have similar complaints.